The Demon Awakens (41 page)

Only then did Elbryan realize that the wrist of the arm with which he had grabbed the assassin was bleeding, a thin line of red. Not a serious wound, surely, but one that seemed to burn with an anger of its own. The ranger shrugged it away and hustled to the side of the fat monk.

Avelyn was ready for the charge, his hands moving in swift defense. Elbryan had no time for that, though. “I am no enemy!” he declared, but when Avelyn, howling his usual “Ho, ho, what!” punched out anyway, Elbryan skittered down to one knee, hooked his staff behind the fat man’s legs, and uprooted him. The monk fell hard to the floor.

Elbryan was over him in an instant, more to protect him from the angry crowd than in any fear of retaliation. “I am no enemy!” he yelled again, and he caught the fat man by the wrist and yanked him to his feet, then rushed him out of the tavern.

The fight continued without them; Avelyn had merely given the villagers and the visiting trappers an excuse for a wild party.

Brother Avelyn was full of questions, full of protests, but the ranger would hear none of them. He ushered the monk away, his own eyes darting from shadow to shadow, expecting the deadly stranger to be about. Finally they got behind the back wall of the northernmost house in the village, just beneath the forested slope.

“Preparedness training,” Avelyn explained, and the look on his face showed that he meant to carry on the fight out here, with just this one “trainee.”

One good look at Elbryan changed Avelyn’s mind, though. Lines of sweat streaked the ranger’s face and his breath came in short gasps. Elbryan held up his wrist, staring at the wound, presenting it as explanation to the now-curious monk.

Avelyn caught the arm and held it up in the moonlight. It was not a serious wound, a tiny slice, too small to have been caused by a dagger, even. That alone told the monk that this man was in serious trouble. For a wound so minuscule to cause such pain could only mean . . .

Avelyn fumbled to find his hematite. He suspected poison and understood that the longer it took him to go after the insidious substance, the more deeply he would have to join his spirit with his patient’s and the more agony it would cause both of them.

As soon as he started, however, Brother Avelyn found a frightening twist. This man had been poisoned, no doubt about it, but the poison was not based in any
substance,
in any herb or plant or any animal venom. It was magically based; the monk could feel that keenly. As such, it was quite easy for Avelyn to counter the effects with his powerful hematite, and soon Elbryan was breathing steadily again, soon the burning pain was no more.

“No enemy?” Avelyn asked when he saw that Elbryan was fine and steady.

“No enemy,” the ranger replied. “But know that you will make enemies, my friend, with such talk and such—”

“Preparedness training,” Avelyn finished with a wink.

“Indeed,” the ranger said dryly. “And they will surely prepare the ground for your interment if you continue to battle with some of the scoundrels about Dundalis.”

Avelyn nodded and shrugged helplessly. “Your wound will heal,” he assured the ranger, and then he started away, into the dark night, heading back toward the Howling Sheila, where the fighting was gradually diminishing.

Elbryan watched him go, taking some comfort in the fact that the man swerved for the inn’s side door and was apparently going to his room, not back to the common room. The fat monk was in real trouble, the ranger realized, for that man he had fought, that man with the poisoned needle, was much more than an overzealous ruffian. Elbryan didn’t know exactly where he might fit in to such a private affair, but he expected that he and the fat monk—and likely the deadly stranger, as well—had not seen the last of one another.

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CHAPTER 34

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Justice

Brother Avelyn was not overly concerned when he returned to his room to find that Jill was not about. The woman had mentioned her plans to walk to the valley beyond the north slope, and the monk was confident that Jill could take care of herself. In their weeks together, it seemed to Avelyn that Jill looked after him more than he protected her.

So the monk, exhausted from fighting and then curing the stranger’s magical poisoning, his mind heavy with drink, plopped down on his bed and was soon snoring loudly. His dreams were not content, though, not with the prospects of a magic-wielding assassin nearby. Likely, the man was in no way connected to Avelyn, but still the fugitive monk remained concerned.

He awoke late the next morning, to find himself alone in the room. Again, he was not concerned, figuring that Jill had come in after he had fallen asleep, and was long up and about, probably down in the common room having her breakfast.

“Or lunch,” the monk remarked aloud with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Ho, ho, what!”

When he got downstairs, though, Avelyn saw no sign of Jill; indeed, Belster O’Comely informed him that he had not seen the woman all night. “Perhaps she found better company to keep,” the innkeeper said snidely, leaning on the broom he was using to sweep up the remnants of the previous night’s activities.

“Indeed would Jill be better off away from one as mad as I,” Avelyn replied, wincing with every word, for his head was pounding. The monk had long ago noted, with complete frustration, that the hematite, powerful as it was, could do little to relieve a hangover.

Avelyn ate a light meal, then shuffled outside and promptly regurgitated it. He felt better after. The day was cool and gray, the sky spitting light snow every so often. “Oh, where are you, girl?” Avelyn asked loudly, more frustrated than afraid. The question would have to wait, though, for the monk made his weary way back to his room and went back to bed.

He didn’t wake up again until the next morning, to discover, once more, that Jill was nowhere to be found. Now Avelyn was indeed growing fearful; it wasn’t like Jill to disappear for so long without forewarning him or without finding some way to contact him. That, combined with the presence of this magic-wielding assassin, surely concerned the monk. Perhaps the incident in the common room was no accident. Perhaps the monastery was on his trail. Had they caught him at last, up here in the most remote corner of Honce-the-Bear? And had Jill paid dearly for Avelyn’s crimes?

He went to speak with Belster again, and, after hearing from the innkeeper that Jill still had not been seen, Avelyn begged the innkeeper to tell him how he might locate the stranger who had shuffled him out of the fight.

“The ranger?” Belster asked incredulously, and from his tone, it was obvious to Avelyn that few inquired as to this man’s whereabouts.

“If that is what he calls himself,” Avelyn replied.

“He calls himself Elbryan,” Belster explained, “to me, at least, though to others he carries another title. And he’s one of the rangers, do not doubt.” He saw that the term held no meaning for Avelyn. “Some say they’re elf trained, others that they’re merely misfits who find some comfort in thinking themselves better than anyone else, walking their vigilant patrols, protecting all the land—not that there’s any need for protection, of course.”

“Of course,” Avelyn politely echoed. He found that he was beginning to like this man called Elbryan more and more with every word. “Where might I find this ranger, then?” the monk pressed.

Belster’s shrug was surely sincere. “Here and there,” he replied. “Walks the woods from here to End-o’-the-World, from what I’m told.”

Avelyn’s expression soured and he looked down at the bar. “What of the other stranger?” he asked. “The small mysterious man who fought so well?”

Belster’s face screwed up. “There are many strangers in Dundalis this season,” he answered. “And all of them fight well, else the forest would have taken them by now!”

“The small and agile man,” Avelyn tried to clarify, “the one who battled Elbryan so fiercely.”

Belster nodded his recognition. “He was in here again last night,” the innkeeper explained. “No fighting this time.”

Avelyn took a deep breath and cursed himself for sleeping the afternoon and all the night through while a potential clue to Jill’s whereabouts was right below him.

“Direct me, then,” the monk said at last. “Point me in the most likely direction where I might find Elbryan.”

Again Belster shrugged, then he considered the fact that every time he had seen Elbryan enter Dundalis, it was down the north road. He pointed to the north. “That way,” he declared, “up and over the slope, through the vale, and turn west.”

Avelyn automatically looked that way, though of course, all he could see was the north wall of the Howling Sheila. He nodded as he considered the words, glad for them. Traveling north, he might find Elbryan, it would seem, and he would also be able to search for signs of his dear Jill.

He set off after a quick meal, huffing and puffing up the forested slope, then, after a long pause spent staring down at the stark pines and white ground, he started down the back side of the ridge, into the valley, angling northwest.

There were no signs to be found—Brother Justice had made certain of that—and oblivious Avelyn passed by within thirty feet of the concealed entrance to the cave that now served as Jill’s prison.

She had not been treated badly . . . until Brother Justice had returned, the night before last, in a foul mood and visibly bruised, to find that she had nearly escaped her tight bonds. Then the monk had beaten her severely and had subsequently tied her up so tightly that her hands and feet were now completely numb.

When she wouldn’t—couldn’t—tell him anything about the staff-wielding stranger who had intervened in the inn, the ferocious monk had beaten her again, and now one of her eyes was swollen closed.

Brother Justice had spent all that next day with her, talking mostly to himself about how he might get word to the fat monk that he held her captive. Then the assassin had gone out; Jill knew that his plan still was not fully clear and that he was simply searching for more information. Now, with a gray morning fast turning to midday outside, Brother Justice had not returned.

Jill hoped that Avelyn had killed him; Jill, who could not possibly get out of the bindings and gag that the monk had put on her this time, hoped that Avelyn had first forced the man to disclose her whereabouts!

To Avelyn, who had lived all of his life in the more populous and defined central region of Honce-the-Bear, and who had lately traveled the breadth of the land along well-defined roads, with clear landmarks and signposts, the prospects of finding the ranger had not initially seemed dismal. It wasn’t until Avelyn got deep into the wide forest, where the view varied little from direction to direction, where the landmarks were so much more subtle, that he understood the true scope of his hunt. The distance from Youmaneff to St.-Mere-Abelle was over two hundred miles, the distance from Dundalis to End-o’-the-World but two score, yet, given the winding trails and the areas where there were no trails at all, Avelyn soon realized that he would have had a better chance of finding the ranger had he been pursuing the man in the miles from his home to the abbey.

He wandered in circles, taking care to note the direction of the sun as it slipped behind the gray canopy, looking for some sign. Of course Elbryan, trained by the elves, left little or no trail at all, and Avelyn’s frustration steadily mounted. He wasn’t even sure, after all, that Elbryan had left Dundalis in this direction.

Thus, by midday, the monk was ready to give up the hunt. He would return to Dundalis—and perhaps Jill would be there waiting for him—and then take the more conventional road through Weedy Meadow to End-o’-the-World. There was simply no possibility, he now understood, that he would find the ranger in this forest.

But Avelyn was no ranger, and this was not his domain, and while he had no chance of locating Elbryan, the ranger had little trouble finding him.

The monk was huffing and puffing along a flat trail, arching around the base of a hillock, when he first heard the hooves. He scrambled for some brush, thinking to hide, and then, when that seemed futile, he fumbled about his magical stones, trying to sort out some defensive measures.

A moment later, Avelyn relaxed as a powerful black stallion thundered by.

“No rider,” the monk said aloud, mocking his own worries. “Ho, ho, what!”

“But a beautiful horse nonetheless,” came a remark from right behind and above him. “Would you not agree?”

Avelyn froze in place, a lump rising in his throat. He turned slowly to see the ranger crouched in the brush along the side of the hillock, just a few feet back. “H-how did you—” the monk stammered. “I mean, you were there all along?”

Elbryan shook his head and smiled.

“But how . . .”

“You were busy listening to the horse,” the ranger explained. Avelyn glanced back the other way to see the stallion standing tall and pawing the ground, looking at him and Elbryan with eyes that seemed too intelligent for such a creature.

“His name is Symphony,” Elbryan explained.

“I am not well acquainted with horses,” Avelyn admitted, “but he seems a wonder.”

Elbryan uttered a soft clicking sound, and Symphony responded by lifting his ears and nickering. The stallion pawed the ground once more, then thundered away back along the trail.

“You will have a hard time catching that one again!” Avelyn blurted, trying to ease his own tension. He looked back at Elbryan. “Ho, ho, what!”

Elbryan didn’t blink and the ranger’s lack of interest stole the bubbly grin from Avelyn’s face.

“Well, yes,” the monk began uncomfortably. “Why am I here, then, you would like to know. Of course, of course.”

Elbryan squatted perfectly still, arms across his bent legs, fingers locked together, his gaze fixed upon the man.

“Well . . . to find you, yes, yes,” Avelyn finally explained, finding his wits against that uncompromising stare. “Of course, yes, I came into the forest looking for the one they call the ranger.”

Elbryan gave a slight nod, prompting Avelyn to continue.

“Well, it is about the fight, of course,” he said. “About the man, actually, the one who tried for me but poisoned you.”

Elbryan nodded; this visit wasn’t totally unexpected, since the stealthy fighter from the Howling Sheila was still in the region, as was this monk whom Elbryan believed the assassin’s target. Elbryan suspected that the mad friar would need help, and suspected, too, that he would find little among the folk of Dundalis.

“He attacked you again?” the ranger asked.

“No—no,” Avelyn stammered. “Well, yes, actually, or he might have. I cannot be sure.”

Elbryan sighed wearily.

“It is my companion, of course,” the nervous monk went on. “Beautiful young woman, and a fighter, too. But she is gone, nowhere to be found, and I am afraid—”

“You should be afraid,” Elbryan replied. “That was no ordinary brawler in the common room the other night.”

“The magical poison,” Avelyn reasoned.

“The way he moved,” Elbryan corrected. “He was a warrior, a true warrior, long trained in the art of battle.”

Avelyn nodded enthusiastically, but the ranger’s words only heightened his fear that this was indeed no coincidental attack that the fighting monks of the Abellican Church were after him.

“You must tell me of this man,” Elbryan said, “everything you know.”

“I do not
know
anything,” Avelyn replied in exasperation.

“Then tell me everything that you suspect,” the ranger demanded. “If he has your friend, then you need my help—help I willingly give, but only if you remain forthright with me.”

Avelyn nodded again, glad for the words. Elbryan rose and moved down to the trail, Avelyn following close behind.

“I do not even know your name,” the monk remarked, though he remembered the name that Belster had given to this man.

“I am El—” the ranger began reflexively, but he caught himself and looked hard at the monk, the first man who had actively sought out his help since he had left Andur’Blough Inninness, the first man who would admit that he needed the ranger’s assistance. “I am Nightbird,” Elbryan said evenly.

Avelyn cocked an eyebrow at that curious title, not the response he had expected. Whatever the man’s reasons for offering a different title were not important, Avelyn decided, and so he accepted the name without further question. The pair walked back toward Dundalis then, Avelyn telling Elbryan his suspicions about the pursuit from the church. Of course, the conversation grew uncomfortable for Avelyn when the ranger asked why St.-Mere-Abelle might be after the monk, and Avelyn had not the time nor the inclination to explain all the events that had led to his fateful decision. How does one justify murder and theft, after all? Elbryan didn’t press the point, however; at that time, all that truly seemed relevant was that Avelyn’s companion was missing, possibly kidnapped by a man the ranger knew to be dangerous.

And Avelyn’s description of his companion, added to the fact that the monk hinted that they had come to Dundalis for her benefit, gave the ranger much to think about.

The hunt began soon after, Elbryan searching hard to find some trail leading out of Dundalis, while Avelyn inquired of Belster and some other patrons in the Howling Sheila whether the stranger had returned to the inn today.

Their answers came near dusk, when Avelyn returned to his room to find a note pinned to his bedding. It was short and to the point, confirming the monk’s worst fears. If Avelyn wanted to save his companion, he was to travel to the slope overlooking the pine valley, alone, and wait at an appointed spot.

He showed the note to Elbryan down in the Howling Sheila’s common room, the pair ignoring the many derisive remarks aimed at them by the early customers there.

“Go, then,” the ranger bade the monk.